Page 105 of Claim

Imogen stepped directly into his path. “Have you seen Tristan?”

He paused, frowned, the same brief calculation, then looked around.

“No. I assumed he was with you.”

I stood.

If you’ve lived long enough watching rooms, or streets, instead of people the way I’ve had to, you learn early that faces lie, bodies don’t. Noise fades, patterns don’t. There’s a second, a moment, where everything lines up wrong and your gut goes cold.

That second hit right fucking then.

I lifted my gaze over the crowd, not fixing on anyone, but scanning. Heads. Shoulders. Movement. Flow. I wasn’t looking for something. I was looking for the thing that didn’t belong.

Then I saw it.

“Tyler,” I breathed.

Wrong place. Wrong side of the room. Wrong energy. He hadn’t been in the public gallery; I’d’ve seen him and I hadn’t. It had been empty. Which should have been an indicator all on its own. I’d been expecting the threat. Braced for Cormac sending someone to stand in that gallery and stare me down the way I had Darren all those months ago. I’d half expected it to be Tyler, sent to remind me what I was, what I did, who I answered to, and what would happen if I didn’t toe the party line.

Plead guilty or end up in the hole.

But no one had been in there. Yet there Tyler was now. Cutting through the thinning crowd, head down. Then he looked up. Straight at me. And shoved someone in front of him. Not obvious. But enough to steer. To keep whoever was in front of him moving where he wanted it to go, angled into him in that way I knew.

I’d taught him that.

So I moved. Purposeful. Quick, but not running. Not yet. Running spooks prey. I threaded through bodies, shoulders low, pace steady, eyes locked on the back of Tyler’s head. Someone shouted something behind me. Probably the guards. But they had no jurisdiction over whether I left after my case was done. So I ignored them.

All that existed was Tyler and the gap between us.

A head I’d smashed more times than the one that left the scar under my hairline.

Then he was gone.

“Oi!” I ran, bursting through the doors into cold air and chaos. Traffic. Voices. Courthouse steps spilling people in every direction. I scanned left, right, and caught sight of a white van fishtailing at the edge of the grounds.

Then it was gone.

Fuck.

I moved again, harder, cutting across the pavement, shouldering past people who hadn’t clocked the danger yet. Tyler was ahead of me, full sprint. Ragged. Panicked. I could smell it on him. He’d always been too loud in his fear, too reckless to hide it. He glanced back, swore, and pushed for more speed.

So did I.

And I was faster.

I took him before he hit the corner. Full-force with my shoulder, sending us both crashing to the ground. He screamed as his face met concrete.

“Where the fuck is he?” I snarled.

He tried to scramble but I hauled him up by the collar and drove him back into the ground, the question landing with him.

“Where. Is. He.” I could’ve shouted. Could’ve grabbed someone. Could’ve done this the clean way. But clean doesn’t get answers. And this was what I was trained to do. So I smashed his face into the pavement again, splaying my hand over his cheek and forced him harder into the concrete. “Talk.”

“Alright, alright!” he mumbled. “Fuck! Let up!”

I hauled him upright, locked him back to my chest and tucked my hand straight to his pocket. Not the obvious one. The hidden one. And there it was. Plastic handle. No metal. Nothing to alert anyone to anything, not even a pat-down would show this. I’d made one of them. Back in prison. I’d almost used it.

Funny how things go full circle, innit?